In the democracy, making decisions should be left to the professionals and intellectuals, not just to politicians, think 87 percent of Macedonian citizens, while 7 percent disagree, according to a results from the study “Political culture, Europeanization and fears in Macedonia” from the poll “Evrometar” conducted in 2014.
34 percent of the population thinks that there is a full democracy in Macedonia, while 39 percent believe that there is no democracy at all.
Macedonia’s membership in the European Union is considered as a good thing by the vast majority of Albanians (91 percent), respondents with elementary education (74 percent) and supporters of SDSM (68 percent), while a smaller degree of agreement can be observed among ethnic Macedonians (54 percent), as well as among the supporters of VMRO-DPMNE (53 percent).
75 percent of Albanians and 60 percent of supporters of SDSM agree with the claim that the European Union is the best alternative for Macedonia. Supporters of VMRO-DPMNE have the strongest opinion (54 percent) that Macedonia should seek its own model for development outside the EU, while only 36 percent believe that the EU is the best alternative.
– Among all key issues concerning the accession to the EU, the gap is largest between VMRO-DPMNE and the Albanian ethnic group. Thus, three quarters of Albanians believe that the Government uses the name dispute in order not to implement reforms. There is a similar percentage among the supporters of SDSM as well – says Ljupcho Petrovski from the Macedonian Center for European Training (MCET).
The poll was conducted over the phone on representative sample of 1,194 respondents from 25th of February until 19th of March this year.
